


Living With It

by indiefic



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 14:30:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4439033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indiefic/pseuds/indiefic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Jesse had other schemes in mind?</p><p>You got played, Reese. It happens. Welcome to the human race.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Living With It

Derek’s arms ache. Mostly from where the metal hands dug into his biceps. The aching muscles aren’t from trying to escape. That would be pointless. The cuffs are reinforced. Ditto for the chair. And the chair is bolted to the cement floor. No human could break out with raw strength. It would probably hold metal for a while too.

He would know.

He put all this together.

Derek looks at the light streaming through the windows. It’s mid-morning and he’s been up for what feels like days. In reality, it’s probably only _a_ day. Still, it’s a long damn time. Too long to spend cuffed to a chair in the basement.

He hears footsteps on the stairs, a lone soldier. He knows it’s Sarah from the cadence of her gait. She opens the door and closes it behind herself.

He stares at the floor, slumped back against the chair.

Sarah pulls the pistol from the waistband of her fatigue pants and there’s a loud clang as sets it on the workbench’s metal top. Despite himself, he turns and looks at the pistol with a sort of morbid curiosity. It isn’t like he hasn’t been in this position before. At least this time he understands the motivation. This time he deserves it. And it’s his gun. There’s a certain poetry in that.

Sarah rummages through one of the workbench drawers. Derek is shocked she’s actually looking for a weapon. He figured she’d stick to form, get in his face, yell, berate, push his buttons until he pushed hers back so hard she could kill him in the heat of the moment. But Sarah isn’t mad. There’s a resignation to her movements, a weariness that chills him more than her anger ever could.

She finally finds what she’s looking for and drops into a crouch in front of him. He stares down at the top of her head as she uses the key to release the binders around his ankles. First the left foot, then the right. She looks up at him, her lips pursed into an expression he doesn’t understand. Sighing, she rises to her feet and circles around behind him, unlocking the cuffs.

Derek immediately pulls his hands in front of himself, rubbing at the grooves the cuffs left on his wrists. Slowly, Sarah walks around him again, stopping in front of him, arms crossed over her chest, one hip cocked out.

Finally, he looks up at her, still seated in the chair, rubbing his wrists.

She looks down at him. There’s no anger in her expression. There’s not even any disappointment. There’s only fatigue. "Take the boys home."

"Jesse - "

"The situation will be taken care of," she says quietly, firmly. There’s no menace in her words, but the grim determination bodes just as badly for Jesse.

Derek turns his head and looks at the gun on the workbench. The one she is obviously returning to him. "I can clean up after myself."

She shakes her head. "Take the boys home."

He opens his mouth to argue, but she cuts him off. "Somebody's probably worried about them."

That stops him short. Yeah. Someone is definitely worried about them. He can only imagine his mother’s face, wondering where her sons are, if they’re okay. The thought of what Jesse tried to do, of what she almost did … His stomach clenches tightly and he fights back nausea.

Sarah’s expression softens. “You got played, Reese. It happens. Welcome to the human race."

His own words echoed back to him. He’d been so smug then, so certain that Sarah was crazy while he was the only one who really knew the score, the only one who was keeping his head in the game. How wrong he’d been.

He wants to argue with her. He wants to remind her that he's the man who killed Andy Goode in cold blood. The man who beat young Fischer half to death with his bare hands. Countless other sins which would make even the relentless Sarah Connor pale.

She meets his gaze and then looks away, shaking her head. "He sent the machine back as an assassin, Reese. Not you."

"You don't know that."

"Yes I do. Take the boys home."

[End]


End file.
